JavaScript email link encoding issue with special characters

Other Questions JavaScript
1

Hey everyone! I’m trying to make a simple email link using JavaScript. The tricky part is I need to include some URLs with spaces and Danish letters in the body of the email.

I thought I solved it by using encodeURI(), but it’s not working as expected. Here’s what I’ve got:

let encodedUrl = encodeURI(myUrl);
let mailtoLink = `mailto:[email protected]?subject=Check this out&body=${encodedUrl}`;

When I log mailtoLink, it looks fine. But when I actually use it, the encoding disappears! The special characters are back to their original form.

Any ideas why this is happening? Is there a better way to handle this? I’m scratching my head here. Thanks for any help!

2

heya CharlieLion22! i’ve run into this before. encodeURI() might not be enough for email links. try encodeURIComponent() instead - it’s more aggressive with encoding. also, make sure you’re applying it to the whole body, not just the URL part. hope this helps ya out!

3

I’ve dealt with this headache before, and it can be frustrating. One thing that worked for me was using a combination of encodeURIComponent() and a custom function to handle the Danish characters. Here’s what I did:

function encodeSpecialChars(str) {
    return str.replace(/[æøå]/g, function(match) {
        return encodeURIComponent(match);
    });
}

let encodedBody = encodeURIComponent(encodeSpecialChars(myUrl));
let mailtoLink = `mailto:[email protected]?subject=Check this out&body=${encodedBody}`;

This approach ensures that both regular special characters and Danish-specific ones are properly encoded. Just remember to test it thoroughly across different email clients, as some can be quite picky about how they handle these links. Good luck!

4

I’ve encountered similar issues with email encoding and discovered that combining encodeURIComponent() with escape() can sometimes solve the problem. For instance, one reliable approach was:

let encodedBody = encodeURIComponent(escape(myUrl));
let mailtoLink = `mailto:[email protected]?subject=Check this out&body=${encodedBody}`;

This double encoding ensures that spaces, Danish letters, and other special characters are properly preserved. It’s also important to note that some email clients impose a limit on mailto link lengths, so careful testing in your particular context is recommended.